News Main Menu

Post-election panel set for Nov. 16

October 22, 2010

Post-election panel set for Nov. 16

Three reporters and a campaign official deeply involved in the Nov. 2 election that will determine races for governor and the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania will participate in a panel discussion at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 16, in 10 Sparks Building on Penn State's University Park campus.

The session, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Department of Journalism and the Davis Program in Ethical Leadership.

The panelists will include:
-- John Micek, Harrisburg bureau chief of the Morning Call in Allentown and author of “Capitol Ideas,” a must-read daily blog for people who write about or participate in Pennsylvania government and politics;
-- Laura Olson, a reporter for the Harrisburg-based news and information service capitolwire.com who also has covered the state budget process and the controversy surrounding Marcellus shale drilling;
-- James O’Toole, the politics editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who (with the exception of the 1992 campaign) has covered every national political convention and presidential election since 1984; and
-- Kevin Harley, press secretary for Republican gubenatorial candidate Tom Corbett. Harley has worked on many statewide campaigns, and has taken a leave from his job at the attorney general’s office to work on the campaign.

Faculty member Russ Eshleman, who teaches basic reporting methods, opinion writing, news media ethics and in-depth reporting, will moderate the session. Before coming to Penn State, he was Harrisburg bureau chief and state political writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He covered Pennsylvania governor and U.S. Senate races throughout the 1980s and 1990s.